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Today we visited the Community Garden, to do some muclching and watering. Thanks to Cheryl for welcoming us and helping us to be helpful.

Pictures that follow are from the first Grade One and Two “Road Race” (which, not lost on the children, clearly did not take place on a road). A very fun event as it turns out. Thanks to Dorothy for lending me her camera at the last second. The quality of the pictures, and the absence of a bunch of blurry ones, is attibutable to my trying to figure out her awesome camera!

As part of our exploration of “Community”, we have been doing regular walkabouts to see what’s out there. One of the concepts we’ve discussed on these walks is “What is public and what is private?”

Fire hydrant: public.

Yes, this is the class after singing in a bus shelter, and discovering it’s amazing acoustic properties. That’s right: singing in Public!!! How often does that happen in our community? Possibly not enough.

Also, starting to notice that there are a lot of signs out there–some of them are new to us, some aren’t. (Moments after we spotted this one, some cyclists helpfully rode by).

Thanks so much to Olivia’s mom Dara who came in to teach the children some string games like Cat’s Cradle. As usual, they were much quicker at learning these than I am.

Today was our last visit with our Pencil Pals. There has been much anticipation of the visit, but sadness as this correspondence comes to an end.

Deanna’s Pencil Pal brought all the letters she’d received over the year, allowing Deanna a chance to look back with amazement at her own growth this year.

We know twelve people came to the party, but in what combinations might they have arrived? Working hard together to find all the ways of making 12. As well as trying to establish the permanence of this quantity, working to establish open-ended, shared problem solving capacity. Not so great yesterday, worked today.

Sorry for interrupting, gentlemen.

Bearded dragons love weaving. So does Merrick.

Hooray for clever hands! Our weaving is coming along. Thanks to Mrs. Byers who took my basic loom design and improved upon it, as well as sharing a system for yarn distribution that doesn’t result in a massive snarl.

We’ve now made all the mistakes there are to make, and have learned from each other, and learned some patience along the way.

Sometimes play is our most important work.

“Spring is coming, spring is coming…!”

Part of the fun of these chalk drawings is their evolution. In the winter drawing, more and more animals appeared. With this one, we have just read the story of The Root Children Wake Up (whose captivating illustrations wildly outshone my own!), and so they have, out the door to usher in Spring.

The Root Children still sleeping, but Spring is coming…

Feeding the dragon. Warning: not for the squeamish!

Mr. Billabong doesn’t get worms every day, but when he does it can be a wonderful show.

The Ones are largely over their squeamishness.

Weaving will provide an excellent opportunity to develop hand/coordination and dexterity. It will also stretch our capacity for extended attention to a project over time. It will require patience and care. Also, it’s kind of cool!

Great excitment always follows when our “Pencil Pal” letter arrive, a year-long exchange with Queen’s B. Ed. students. (I know from visiting their class that our letters to them are at least as valued).

The private read…

…and the shared read.

Hooray for One Hundred Day!

Madisyn arrived with this beautiful collection.

100 assorted things!!

Cold winter days, but lots of creatures are stirring…(Can you find the porcupine? The children tell me there is one but I can’t see it).

Painting is such a special time in our class. The ritual of preparing to paint brings us to a calm, enhanced by Bach or Chopin or Mozart, and the inevitable focus of the children on their work.

Concentration

Care and control has grown throughout the year.

The October day The King of Numberland came and left our counting gems hidden in the woods!

Magic happens…

Let’s get counting!

Gould Lake, way back in September—is it just me, or do the children look SO much younger and littler?? Of course, they all have a lot fewer teeth now.